reading for 3/24

Sorry for the last minute posting.

Reading blog for 3/24/08

This week’s (or last week’s) readings were very identifiable to me. Or should I say, I identified with the concepts, in that I fell like a remedial or, basic writing student. When Shaughnessy talks about her four staged scale, I had to chuckle, because I think I experienced that first stage the first day of class. Isn’t that what Dr.J. was doing when he invited me to drop the class. Me, the only non-English major. Me, the outsider, a science (or Nursing) major. He was “Guarding the Tower”.

I do agree with Ms. Shaughnessy, that it isn’t just the student that needs to, or will change. Teachers are as much affected by their experience with their students and what does or does not work for the students as the students are affected by their experience with the teacher. The student has to learn what the teacher expects from him/her and what to expect from the teacher. Likewise, the teacher has to learn what they can expect from the student. The teacher also must remember that the student has some level of knowledge. I believe it isn’t entirely what they don’t know, but what they do. What they don’t know seems to be how to use what they know, correctly, and how to develop and advance that knowledge and incorporate new knowledge. Shaughnessy seems to be saying that the teacher needs to assess where the student is in knowing language and where he, himself is in knowing writing and language, and begin from there. To develop an approach to teaching writing that puts more emphasis on content than structure and work the meaning of the writing into the student and not the method. The teacher needs to be willing to develop and change himself if he is to develop the student.

I can understand how people like Bartholomae. He is easy to understand, at least, for me, his style of writing is comprehendible. I didn’t have to have a dictionary handy to look up terms that I had never heard before. This brings me to, what I felt, was the point of this essay. He is giving students credit for their attempts at academic discourse even when they don’t know the “language” of that discourse. The student has to assume an authority or privilege that he has not acquired, but makes an attempt to connect with that audience. He notes that writers (inexperienced) will write about their experience with the topic and then try to incorporate the language of the discourse that is needed to pose as member of that community. The essays he discusses “give evidence that the writers are trying to write their way into a new community” (645).

I understand this concept because I have had to write (without being taught how) in the discourse of the nursing community. Sometimes I was the authority, and wrote about topics I knew well and in the language I had mastered. At other times, like, for my graduate studies, as Bartholomae stated, I was aware that something different was required and I mimicked the style and tone and language of other writers in that discipline or level. I did not really understand the discourse, but in making the attempt, learning to take on the role can occur; learning to write from within a specific discourse’. Thinking like English major or a nursing researcher.

Rose’s essays were reminiscent of the learning theory and neurobiology classes I have had in my journey to be an educator. Have there not been any new learning theories on language acquisition and behavioral development since the ‘30’s and 40’s. Piaget’s theories ended with adolescents (males, by the way) and we do have some new theories on adult learning. Rose describes the theories of Witkin on field-dependence and field- independence and a person’s ability to think (and I presume write) abstractly or concretely. I found myself comparing my own abilities with these theories. The trouble with these theories is that I see characteristics from both categories in my thinking and writing. I have to agree with Rose, these theories have their limits and contradictions.

Then he begins a discussion on literacy. I believe he ultimately concludes that the concepts of literacy and cognition are very complex and researchers and theoreticians need to consider carefully all the implications of social influences, dynamic processes and situational dimensions when researching and developing teaching frameworks for composition.

Literacy has always been an uncomfortable concept for me, probably because I see the limitations of the term. One short example; thinking back to the development of the Western Frontier… the native Americans that were hired (used – hired implies payment) as guides for the European explorers could not read or write, therefore they were considered illiterate, but they could read tracks from animals, they could read weather patterns in the sky, they could navigate by the stars, they could communicate by smoke. Who were the illiterate ones? Wasn’t it the Europeans, since this was the society of the Native Americans? I guess this is what is meant by codes- symbolic cues to a language (?)

The second essay by Rose, Language of exclusion had me back with the discussion from Harvard. The students are coming in to the university setting so unprepared that in order to have them capable of writing for the academy we must “remediate” or reteach them. Is English a skill (the use of the language?) And why is the writing course considered the remediation by which the student will “relearn” how to use the English language. (I think it demonstrates that one learns composition by writing).

Why does that make the writing class lower in status within the University?

Here are my thoughts on English as a skill and writing as remediation from the perspective of nursing as a course of education. If a student comes into the University to study nursing (it could be medicine, or biology or other science, I using my frame of reference) It is acknowledged that the student will have had some study in biology and other natural sciences, of a basic level. They are not “retaught” but, rather, expanded upon. The first semester nursing student is not expected to have the knowledge, understanding or skills as a third semester nursing student. Nursing requires “a set of skills” as well as knowledge and the ability it apply that knowledge. Critical thinking needs to be nurtured, and developed in the student nurse. At the end of the educational experience, the student is expected to be able to pass a test that certifies that the student has the knowledge, skills and capacity to think like a nurse. All of the classes in nursing school are stratified and build on one another; even fundamental classes are not considered to be lower in status, but necessary to the continuation of the student through the other classes. They are ALL considered in the nursing department.

My question is why can’t writing and composition be considered stratified, taught in a progressive manner and incorporated throughout the educational goal of a degree in English? Is it, perhaps that a degree in English is so content laden, that writing and composition take up too much time and have to be considered “outside” of English? Perhaps a restructuring of what is really required for a degree in English is what is needed. No easy task. Nursing and Medicine have had the same dilemma for decades. But they have not disowned any of their components. (Nutrition could be the exception) Again, a fundamental component of health and wellness and recovery, Nutrition has become a discipline unto itself. Perhaps that is the argument and I am not seeing it? Where do composition and writing want to be in the university curriculum? Part of or separate from English? Another discipline or adjunct to an English degree. What am I missing here?